Ray Greenblatt

Ray Greenblatt has lived in New England, the West Indies, and along the Eastern Shore. He has written short stories, essays, and poetry which have been published across the U.S. in periodicals as diverse as America, English Journal, and Joseph Conrad Today.

He was nominated for the Pushcart Prize and won the Anthony Byrne Prize. He was also the editor of the magazine General Eclectic. A teacher for many years Ray Greenblatt has taught writing in the Philadelphia Writers Conference as well as spoken at the John Steinbeck Festival in Salinas, California.

ON THE BEACH AT PIRAEUS

Garlic mixes with salt air,
gulls cry with pots and pans;
fishing boats bow and curtsy
like giving bright birthday boxes.
A Greek woman ambles
on the sand letting
the wind comb her hair;
she walks down the beach
thinking a man follows
and should she let him catch up;
but only a cloud shadow
brushes past to evaporate
behind distant dunes.

CINQUE TERRE

Like fools
we rode the trains back & forth
through mountains bordering the sea
all day, hopping off
to straggle down a street
then hop back on again,
nipping from our bottles
that no one seemed to mind,
starting to recognize people
who seemed to be on real business.
We watched water far below
which flung foaming currents in
to carve boulders into art,
then gazing high up we spotted
warm lights in houses
perched on the cliffs.

It was cold in mid-March
the sky was dimming
hunger came down on us
like the blackest cloud
like a crustacean with claws
tearing at our entrails.
The one among us who spoke Italian
said he remembered a good trattoria
in Riomaggiore,
we found it closed up tight
its wooden door depressingly plastered
with circus flyers from the last season
now warped in spattering rain.

Suddenly before us a mirage
that rarely comes to undeserving tourists:
in Monterosa
an open ristorante
smiling waiters, warm fireplace
we smiled back, at each other
thawed, expanded
made lame but gentle jokes
shrimp-lobster-squid-mussels-fish
all on one huge sumptuous platter,
then we trained back to where we had come from.

I carry on in this island whipped by typhoons
Chained to the sea as the waves
Crash against the dam, and I proclaim you.
I scream, until hoarse, your beloved name.

—José Manuel Cardona

These are poems of solid classical diction, keenly aware of the rich traditions that precede it, where mythology, travel and personal memory represent starting points for erotic and metaphysical reflection. —Andrés Neuman, from the Preface

José Manuel Cardona’s Birnam Wood is a superb account of his travels around the world in the service of poetry. —Christopher Merrill

Hélène Cardona’s translations are revelations of language and image, a voice dipped in clear water and wrung through her careful hands. —Dorianne Laux

In years, I have not read a poetry more expansive, gripping, and beautiful for the true music of language. I have been enthusiastically revitalized by the recent encounter with the poetry of José Manual Cardona, masterfully translated by his daughter, poet Hélène Cardona. In her hands, Birnam Wood sings to us in a rendering that is lush and passionate. —Rustin Larson, The Iowa Source

When you take down a book by a master poet like José Cardona you are, while reading his work, reliving, at least for a short spell, the magic of the great moderns and ancients. Hélène Cardona’s translation of her father’s work must be the crowning achievement so far in her own poetic career. For he reads in English as poetry, not as mere translation. I can’t offer better praise then this. —Peter O’Neill, Levure Littéraire.

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Ed Higgins’ poems and short fiction have appeared in various print and online journals including recently: Ekphrastic Review, CarpeArte Journal, Under the Basho, Wales Haiku Journal, and Sum Journal, among ...

Amirah Al Wassif is a freelance writer. She has written articles, novels, short stories poems and songs. Five of her books were written in Arabic and many of her English ...

Raised in Izmir by the Aegean Coast, Mr Güntürk Üstün, a retired medical doctor, a poet, a long-time transportation fan has lived in Istanbul for the past 24 years and ...

Ray Greenblatt has lived in New England, the West Indies, and along the Eastern Shore. He has written short stories, essays, and poetry which have been published across the U.S. ...

Michael H. Brownstein’s work has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Skidrow Penthouse, Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Pacific Review, After Hours, poetrysuperhighway.com and others. He has nine poetry ...

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